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AquAlliance exists to defend northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed. We are prepared and willing to confront the escalating attempts to divert more and more water from the northern Sacramento River hydrologic region.

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Proposed 10-Year Water Transfer Program could send 600,000 acre-feet of Northern California water south.

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3.20.15 – The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and San Luis/Delta Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) released a final Environmental Impact Statement and Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) that responds to public comment on the September 30, 2014 draft 10-Year Water Transfer Program that could send 600,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water south of the Delta. When combined with additional state approved transfers, the total could be over 800,000 acre-feet per year. The majority of the transfer water may come from groundwater substitution.[1]...

Butte County’s Groundwater
- 2015 Update -
On March 12, 2015, Butte County, the City of Chico, and AquAlliance will host a forum to provide the public with an update on local groundwater issues and the challenges and opportunities to sustain our water resources. The main features of the program will be the current groundwater conditions compiled from over 100 wells, updates on state and local efforts to better understand and protect groundwater, a new film about the Owens Valley from CSU Chico entitled Never Enough, and an update on feder...

The following Chico Enterprise Record editorial (1.13.15) is excellent. The paper presents the big picture to readers in a very clear and readable manner. The arguments they present regarding impacts to the Delta smelt highlight how the fish have also helped slow down the draining of the NorthState – the goal of the many of the junior water rights claimants south of the Delta.
Little fish could be savior for overtapped delta
It took all of, oh, a couple of minutes for big water districts in the San Joaquin Valley to criticize the U. S. Su...

A staggering economic and environmental problem festering for three decades in the southern San Joaquin Valley would be addressed by a secret deal reached between the Obama administration and farmers — one that is sounding alarms for Bay Area lawmakers.
The deal would retire 100,000 acres of farmland damaged by salt and selenium in the Westlands Water District, an arid, 600,000-acre patch of farms running along Interstate 5 from Mendota in Fresno County to the Kings County town of Kettleman City. About 600 farms there produce $1 billion in food...

In his December 23, 2014 letter to the Chico Enterprise-Record (see below), U.S. Representative Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) failed to disclose important facts about the “House drought relief legislation.” The benefits he touted for “California as a whole and the north state specifically” are really for a tiny number of river water districts and not “residents” or groundwater dependent farms.
The “north state residents” that LaMalfa asserted had received no water in 2014 were actually farms, not homes. While we can feel for neighbors who hav...

11.14.14 — Butte County Board of Supervisors draft comments on the draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) on a proposed Long Term Water Transfers Program:
“Based on our preliminary view, we believe that the EIS/EIR is seriously flawed and will need to be revised and recirculated. The relied-upon data is outdated, incomplete and selectively chosen. The result is that the EIS/EIR fails to meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act.R...

Excellent news for the Northstate! The blistering comments attacking the environmental review for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) have forced the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to regroup and delay approvals for building the massive Twin Tunnels and extracting the water to fill them from our region. DWR saw they would lose badly in court, so they plan to recirculate parts of the environmental review after they attempt to repair the gaping holes in their analysis.
Our comments attack DWR’s failure to disclose that:
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AquAlliance sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation again over their inadequate environmental review of the Bureau’s ‘temporary,’ North-to-South water transfers that take place year-after-year. While we lost the injunction that sought to halt the transfers,* AquAlliance and our litigation partner, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), achieved the major goal of the lawsuit: the ‘temporary’ water transfers will be folded into a larger plan that must disclose more fully how the communities, economy, and the environment in the NorthS...

Costs vs. Benefits of Big Water Projects: When compared with urban water efficiency, the water storage projects that would be half-funded by the November water bond have very high per-project costs, low yield, and immensely high costs per acre-foot of water. Increasing urban water efficiency only costs about $112 per acre-foot while raising Shasta dam is over $23,000 per acre-foot and building Sites reservoir is almost $6,000 an acre-foot. (An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons of water, enough to last two average California households a year for outdoor and indoor uses.)

MISSION STATEMENT
Water means life. Flora and fauna, land and people exist only with this essential element. High in the mountains, creeks and rivers commence their journey through majestic forests, oak woodlands, wetland savannas, and working lands before joining the mother river, the great Sacramento. AquAlliance exists to defend northern California waters.